Friday, 27 February 2015

Well, the new comics haven't been out that long, one having been at two Cons and the other only one, but we're starting to hear what people think of them.Patrick over at Curiosity of a Social Misfit has reviews posted of both WesterNoir Issue 5 and Tales of WesterNoir Issue 1. It's great to be able to say that he liked them both, and like myself can't wait to see the next issue.
Both WesterNoir Issue 6 and Tales Of WesterNoir Issue 2 are in production. 'Tales of' has two new artists to the series, Joe Campbell (who illustrated Missing : Have You Seen The Invisible Man) has illustrated a story by Gary...

and Mal Earl (who produces the inspired Bulletproof Nylon) has illustrated a story by myself.

Two very different styles, both featuring Jim Wilson, making for a very interesting read.
Gary is working on the cover for this book and we'll get it in print as soon as we are able to.

Saturday, 21 February 2015

As we found with WesterNoir when we brought out Issue 1, it takes a few issues to really start to build a little buzz around a title.
And so it is proving with Stephenson's Robot.
Everybody that sees it on the table at Cons stops and picks it up. Some of those people are not into Steampunk or Robots and comment on the art and quality of the book before putting it down and moving on.
A larger percentage however are intrigued by what they see behind its cover, and pay the £3 required to learn more.Patrick Scattergood over at the Curiosity of a Social Misfitreview site has enjoyed most, if not all, of the Accent UK books that he has reviewed and Stephenson's Robot is no exception. Pop over to his blogand see what he thinks.Stephenson's Robot isn't available in many stores, as we haven't taken it to Diamond yet (so email me at accentuk@btinternet.com for details if you'd like to buy a copy) but it's great to see it on the shelf with all those other great titles.

At Millennium Comics in Northwich it has pride of place sat next to Andy Bloor's Midnight Man ... great company indeed.

Monday, 16 February 2015

It's the start of a new year of Comic Cons.
We now have an ongoing series on its 5th issue and another just starting out.
We've listened to the advice of our friends, both competitors, customers and our printer (Stuart Gould) and have decided to heed their advice and change the look of our table.
We've decided to move away from having a table full of all sorts of comics to having one that focuses on displaying the ongoing series, and whatever we might have that's new.
This meant putting all of the old books into a box on the table, making them harder for potential customers to spot when passing the stall.DemonCon 9, being our first Con of the year, was where we tried it all out.
We had some new WesterNoir Standees.
We took my little Accent UK modified Lego figures.
We had Gary's great sketches.
We had to try it.

Gary awaits the first customer.

It was a long drive down, and we met Graham owner of the Grinning Demon comic shop and DemonCon event organizer as we were setting up. He was worried that the event wouldn't have as many customers as last year, there had been a problem with printing the fliers in time, and he wanted to apologize up front. We were pretty relaxed about it though, we were here and we were going to enjoy ourselves.
We were happy with how much less cluttered the table looked, and in fact I'm not sure we could have fitted everything on if we set it up as we had in the past.
The standees were great...

...giving a nice third dimension to the table. We will certainly be getting more of them made for future Cons.
The whole WesterNoir side of the table was a pleasure to look at. It's amazing having 5 issues of a title on sale, and interest in them was pretty constant throughout the day. A good number of customers bought all 6 titles (they picked up Tales of WesterNoir as well), and it was great to have customers from last year pick up the latest issues with a contented smile on their faces.
It did seem a little quieter than last year, but the customers that we did have more than made up for it and by the end of the day we'd increased our sales by 10%.

WesterNoir 5 ... can't wait for Issue 6 now :o)

The box of back issues also seemed to work, with a good number of customer looking through it and some pulling out and buying our older stock.
So, all in all I think the new layout is pretty successful. We'll no doubt play with it over time and modify it here and there, but on the whole it'll stay pretty much as is.
My little modified Lego Figures were also a success and drew a lot of people to the stall. The kids had great fun matching the figures to the comics, and also demonstrating their knowledge by telling me which bits of which figures I'd used in their construction. I also got a top tip from a father who was often trying to find that illusive final figure without spending a fortune and amassing hundreds of doubles.
A great day. A great little Con.
We'll be back next year for certain.

Saturday, 14 February 2015

Tomorrow see us (that's me and Gary Crutchley) set off pretty early for DemonCon 9 in Maidstone, although it starts at 11am it's a long drive down from Stoke. Well worth the trip though as last year we had a great time and found the event to be really well managed and well attended.
This time around we will be launching WesterNoir Issue 5, which is a pivotal issue as it really starts to explain some of the events that Josiah Black finds himself in the middle of.

We'll also have the first issues of Tales Of WesterNoir and Stephenson's Robot (which has been reviewed over on DownTheTubes), both of which are new to the event.
Hope to see you there.

About Me

I'm your typical 20th Century bloke living in the 21st Century and wondering what's going on. I like to live in a world where there are still questions to be answered and mysterious happennings. My ideal magazine would be the result of combining Fortean Times with New Scientist ... and leaving it to the reader to interpret.
I work against IT during the day, and at night I try to steal moments to create comic books. Either as writer, artist or both. I've formed a small independent comic company in the UK, Accent UK, with Colin Mathieson, which produces quite well received annual themed anthologies, but is also now producing one shots. Comics that I've co-created and written include ''The Wolfmen'',''The Fall Of The Wolfmen'', with art by Andy Bloor and the 2009 EAGLE Award winning ''Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man?'' which was illustrated by Marleen Lowe. My own little doodlings appear in webcomic called ''Strange Times'' and the yearly anthologies.